Some of you may have seen me ingame. IGN is Auroura. Currently a level 99 Pathfinder. As I get started on this guide I want you to keep in mind that I am still learning. And that nothing I say in this is law and is subject to change or new opinions. I will update or change it as I see fit with new discoveries of strategies or mechanics as the game develops.

1. What exactly is the role of a Pathfinder?

As I’ve noticed some on the forums it is accurate to say each classes role depends on the mode. With that being said though I feel each class still kind of falls into a “general” role. With the amount of time I’ve spent putting into my PF I consider it to be a “Supportive” role, and prefer to play it as such. When I say support, obviously I don’t mean one that heals. I mean supportive as in the sense that it offers a lot of utility to the team with traps, blinds, DoTs, slows. A swap to force initiate a fight or to easily capture relics or just move someone off the tower or out of the fight in king of the hill. Swap can also be used to save teamates lives, however I see it rarely used as such and admittedly I don’t do it often myself. I’m still working a lot on my mechanics. The point is though, the class offers a lot of to a team, and when mastered I believe (with the current classes at least) control a lot of the flow of a game.

I have a few major objectives in mind when I’m playing team deathmatch on my PF assuming my team is actually working together.

Objective one: Protect my shaman.
Objective Two: Make the enemy shaman’s (assuming they have one) life a living hell for the duration of the match.

I’ll elaborate on each of these objectives. While most players haven’t quite figured it out yet. This is a very team oriented game. So staying with the team is important. Can’t stress this enough. With that being said I feel one of the most reliable classes to keep next to a Shaman is a PF. Due to before mentioned utility skills. Assuming the other team is doing it right they will be trying to hunt and focus down your shaman. It is at that point I take it upon myself to be a body guard. Shamans obviously offer a lot to your team fighting experience. Keep those assassins off your shaman. Drop those traps to either A: Catch an assassin off guard. They step on the traps quite often actually. You’d be surprised. B: Drop them right as an assassin initiates on your shaman (or any other class for that matter) C: Use them to prevent an assassin from escaping if they’ve shadow shifted on someone.

I stress the importance on the shaman protection but in all honesty, while I make the shaman my primary objective, you should be doing this for any team member should you get split or just in general. Awareness is important. You can hear and sometimes see assassins if they are close enough. Don’t be afraid to look silly and spam m1 or poison arrow or whatever trying to get someone out of stealth.

Now, when you want to make an enemy shaman’s life a living hell you have a lot of tools in your arsenal to do so. If I’m aware that a Shaman is doing a really good job for their enemy team. And our team fights come down to focusing a shaman out the fight. I sacrifice more of objective one to stick to a shaman, and I mean stick to them. If I know I have a team where I can really get in their face and a shaman that can keep me up I have no issues diving in balls deep into and enemy team dropping traps around to knockdown, split up, annoy, etc. The enemy team. But I make sure that I focus the damage primarily on the shaman. Keep poison arrows spammed to constantly tick away at their hp, blind to be constantly annoying, pin foot to prevent movement so your team can get in there and do damage as well. With that being said it is important that your team commit to this with you. I notice a lot of fights where ranged classes sit in the back and in all honesty, I know how ranged generally works in most games but I’m not seeing this as effective. At least not in major fights thus far. I’ve noticed that getting super aggressive and right in their face USUALLY (not always) results in the shaman dying, and if the shaman doesn’t die. The shaman falls behind in healing. Never give the shaman a break. That doesn’t mean forget about your team or your surroundings. But be sure to make them suffer. I feel PF is really effective in this, but really all classes need to be annoying to a shaman in some way, shape, or form. Don’t forget to spam some volley in there too. That skill is great for putting pressure on teams, it hits everyone in the LoS of the skill (I believe its everyone in LoS anyway) and is spammable, great source of damage.

2. Class matchups

Admittedly, I’m no expert in all the matchups yet, and I’m still trying to experiment with ways to deal with certain classes. However, I will offer what knowledge I do have and I’m open to more suggestions to what other players have learned. By no means am I pro at this game.

Assassins: This is probably my most annoying matchup by far in my eyes. Personally, I can’t stand assassins. Not because I’m just terrible at dealing with them or anything of that sort. But…they’re really just annoying. However, how much trouble I have dealing with an assassin depends on the assassin. I’d like to make a shoutout to bigbuddha especially for mind fucking the hell out of me with his wall jumps, escapes, blocking, and just being a great player overall.

So how do you deal with an assassin? I know some people say PF is a soft-counter to assassin and I more or less agree overall. But even still, an assassin can make me have a really bad time. Things to keep in mind:

When an assassin stuns you, after the stun duration your next attack is a guaranteed miss. I know most Pathfinders instantly throw a trap once the stun duration is over. Instead throw out a mouse 1 then a trap. Bear in mind you don’t want to be too predictable. I learned this the hard way after playing some against bigbuddha and Sploosh. If you throw down the trap right after the mouse 1 every time you will notice that smart assassins will back away. Then you’ve wasted your traps. So bear in mind to switch it up. Instead of going for a trap. Just go for a pin foot. Quickly get behind them (if they block) drop a caltrop to get a DoT and a slow goings o they can’t stealth out. After that try and keep on the assassin. Spam poison arrows to constantly prevent them from going stealth. The smokescreen thing is kind of a problem too at times. All I can say is try to pump them with arrows, that skill gives them ample time to stealth, but with poison arrow and regular arrows the arrows do stay stuck in the body for a duration, use that to track down where they move. When I list these tips I think this is more of a 1v1 perspective, like if you get shadow shifted or split alone. That’s all that comes to mind so far when dealing with sins. I’ll add more as I discover things. Keep in mind they can shadow leap through walls. Also I’ve encountered assassins that just stun, stack 2-3 bleed hits stealth and run away before my stun duration is over, rinse repeat. I’m not sure how to deal with this personally. If you’re alone you don’t get m1 off so if you leave your traps on the ground for when they return they just miss. Some counters to this strat would be appreciated, so I can add it to my guide. I would imagine taking advantage of wall jumping would give them a bad time too. However, my wall jumping is poor and that’s only a theory. Will look more into this as I improve.

Pyromancer: This is class is just not a good matchup for PF in my opinion. Fighting them at a distance though is a terrible idea. What I try to do is blind them or bind them to try and close distance. Pyromancer has a lot of instant moves, while all of ours are projectiles and have to travel. Apart from closing the distance and trying to circle and jump around them. I don’t have much to offer you really. I feel that if I get the distance closed and managed to block their molten bola then I can just drop traps down and use poison arrow if necessary.

Use pin foot to bind and get behind the Pyro so they can’t block your traps or other attacks. Try to block their spells too, at least I do. Spells like the curse or the meteor storm.

Warden: Honestly, so far I haven’t had much difficulty with this class. Short of Mykro, no other wardens give me too much trouble. They have a gap closing ability and two stuns (I think its two at least) but I believe stacking poison and traps on them beats them fine. Just kite around them as best you can. If any of you are having difficulties fighting wardens, elaborate and I’ll try and offer any help I can or suggestions.

Shaman: Should you ever be in a 1v1 scenario with a shaman…you had better win. Shouldn’t bean issue unless you are really low.

I apologize for the limited info that I have on the other classes besides assassin, and rarely should you be having too many 1v1 scenarios anyway. I’ll probably add more on matchups from a team perspective once I get into a competitive arena team and have a lot more experience playing against other equally or better skilled players that are also organized.

3. Things you SHOULDN’T do

Pathfinder is a ranged class, yes. However, when you sit in camo and you just spam mouse 1 on top of a roof you are useless to your team. It’s funny, I know. Especially when they don’t know where the arrows are coming from. But in all seriousness this is just not a viable strategy. I feel you offer more being up close than in the fight that just sitting on a roof in camo. So don’t do it. It’s disgusting. You will make me want to hurt you. In real life.

Careful when camo-swapping someone into your team. Sometimes its risky if their team is actually prepared. Do not switch into an enemy team if you have no way out. Try to save your explosive trap to knock them down after the swap and get some distance. Be sure your team is ready to help you disengage if necessary.

4. How to contribute and play with your team as a whole

Alright, so you understand that it’s a team game and that you have to protect your shaman as your primary role. But what else can you do for the rest of your team? I just got some suggestions on what to add from Mykro. Try to keep blind going down on ranged dps to help mitigate any damage you can. For example. You have an assassin on your shaman, naturally you focus your damage on the assassin, but obviously the only source of damage on your shaman is not going to be the assassin. Throw a blind on a pin foot on the ranged dps. Try and keep them as crippled as possible while making sure your shaman stays up.

Also, try and let your team know before you go for a swap. I’m guilty of rarely mentioning it, but its good to let people know. Try to focus objective targets. In my opinion this order would be Shaman>Pyromancer>Pathfinder>Assassin(Unless the assassin is on your shaman then you switch focus accordingly)>Warden I know warden disrupts a team a lot but isn’t the most excellent source of damage. Focusing a tank is something you generally want to do. Assassins alone don’t put out tons of damage (in my opinion) and are better off picking stragglers or people that get low.

Also, I’d like to include that while I prefer to play my Pathfinder in a supportive role, I still dish out lots of damage. Currently averaging about 17-20k damage per game. I’m usually first in damage in my games as well. So it may be more accurate to describe PF as an “Offensive Support”.

5. When and how to setup for a swap

I’m still working on getting an “Ideal” or “Perfect” swaps off. However, I’ll share what I do have so far. Pin foot is a good way to bind a priority target then swap them into your team since they won’t be able to move for the duration of the skill. Also, try to swap someone running away to prevent the escape if you feel it necessary. Blind is also another good way to set up a swap (In theory, I haven’t tested this myself) personally. I believe swapping Shamans, sins, and other pathfinders is fine. I’d be careful on swapping a Pyromancer because of dat molten armor. Punish players for being out of position or too far from the team. If you see someone standing by his or herself shooting at you and you can punish them for it, then punish them for it.

This concludes my “guide” so far. I’ll be updating more on armor and customization when I’ve settled and experimented with some things. Hopefully this helps out new players or people that just needed more suggestions or didn’t know what to do. Again, like previously mentioned this is just my way of playing PF. There may be better and other ways that are more suited to you. This is just what I’ve seen as the most effective. PF can do a lot of damage potentially. Not as much or as quickly as Pyromancer in my opinion, but still good. If other experienced PF players have more to offer, please leave suggestions and tell me what you think. I’m always looking to learn more.